Feature by Joanna Brichetto

No matter how we spell it, Hanukkah or Chanukah is a unique holiday, an eight-day celebration that commemorates the re-dedication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. Celebrated from December 20 to December 28 this year, Hanukkah continues to inspire new children’s books that offer historical background and cultural details about the holiday. We've selected three that are particularly...

Vonnegut's life, like a bug in amber

In April 2011, the Library of America permanently established Kurt Vonnegut, who died in 2007, in the literary firmament with its publication of Novels and Stories: 1963-1973, a collection of four of Vonnegut’s most popular novels and a selection of his stories, interviews and speeches. While Vonnegut might have welcomed this recognition, he might also have made light of it with his...

Well Read Column by Robert Weibezahl

H.G. Wells was not the first writer to imagine time travel, but his 1895 novel, The Time Machine, captured the Victorian imagination and still endures as a canonical work of speculative fiction. Now Spanish writer Félix J. Palma has appropriated the visionary writer as the central character of his own novel, The Map of Time, a brawny, genre-bending historical entertainment. In three...

Drama at the family cottage

Author J. Courtney Sullivan made a name for herself in 2009 with a smart, incredibly resonant debut, Commencement, about four unlikely friends during their college years at Smith and the turbulent 20-something years that followed. With her sophomore effort, Sullivan turns from friendships to family, writing with the same warmth and nuance as in Commencement, but pushing her characters further,...

Lifestyles Column by Joanna Brichetto

Catch the Wind, Harness the Sun: 22 Super-Charged Projects for Kids by Michael J. Caduto is an empowering book, literally and pedagogically. It’s all about power, both the renewable energy technologies that can help us live in balance with the environment, and the surprising power of each kid to reduce emissions, conserve resources and change the world. Catch the Wind helps the next...

Feature by Ron Wynn

Black History Month shines a light on lesser-known topics from our past and has the potential to open new conversations on historical events often taken for granted. The latest crop of books on black history achieves both goals.LIVING HISTORY IN HARLEMSharifa Rhodes-Pitts’ enlightening Harlem Is Nowhere takes a new approach in her look at the venerable community. Rather than crafting a...

The perfume with a life of its own

Think you know all there is to know about Chanel No. 5? Think again. The perfume that famously was the only thing Marilyn Monroe wore to bed has a fascinating history revealed by English professor Tilar J. Mazzeo in The Secret of Chanel No. 5. Read on for more.Before The Secret of Chanel No. 5 you published The Widow Clicquot...

The engaging love story of John and Abigail Adams

When John Adams was sworn in as our nation’s second president, his wife Abigail was in Massachusetts taking care of John’s dying mother. It wasn’t long before a lonely and politically isolated John pleaded with her to join him in Washington. “I can do nothing without you,” he wrote.Although she did much more, Abigail’s chief role as John’s wife,...

In a quest for answers, they find each other

In a time not that distant from our own, in a city on the East Coast of America, three children are faced with burdens and challenges that would stagger many adults. Their search to find answers—in the extraordinary and in each other—is the quest at the core of Matthew J. Kirby’s marvelous debut novel, The Clockwork Three.Guiseppe is an 11-year-old orphan who works as a...

Feature by Alice Cary

On Halloween night, the streets of our small town burst with goblins and strolling parents. It’s a once-a-year party that can’t be beat. Here are four picture books guaranteed to get you in the “spirit.”Jon J Muth continues his captivating, thought-provoking Zen series in Zen Ghosts, a unique Halloween tale. As in Zen Shorts and Zen Ties, the story features a giant...